When Montezuma Met Cortes
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3.7 • 9 Ratings
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- $22.99
Publisher Description
A dramatic rethinking of the encounter between Montezuma and Hernando Cortés that completely overturns what we know about the Spanish conquest of the Americas
On November 8, 1519, the Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortés first met Montezuma, the Aztec emperor, at the entrance to the capital city of Tenochtitlan. This introduction—the prelude to the Spanish seizure of Mexico City and to European colonization of the mainland of the Americas—has long been the symbol of Cortés’s bold and brilliant military genius. Montezuma, on the other hand, is remembered as a coward who gave away a vast empire and touched off a wave of colonial invasions across the hemisphere.
But is this really what happened? In a departure from traditional tellings, When Montezuma Met Cortés uses “the Meeting”—as Restall dubs their first encounter—as the entry point into a comprehensive reevaluation of both Cortés and Montezuma. Drawing on rare primary sources and overlooked accounts by conquistadors and Aztecs alike, Restall explores Cortés’s and Montezuma’s posthumous reputations, their achievements and failures, and the worlds in which they lived—leading, step by step, to a dramatic inversion of the old story. As Restall takes us through this sweeping, revisionist account of a pivotal moment in modern civilization, he calls into question our view of the history of the Americas, and, indeed, of history itself.
Customer Reviews
A little much…
I was really excited to hear more history about this time period. But the author seemed embittered and threw everything he had at “re-writing the narrative.” I loved how much research he did; he is totally an expert on the subject. But he overwhelmed me with how many sources he would throw out there. It became noise after a while and was hard to stay engaged at times. I do appreciate the different perspective that he was trying to offer, but he seemed angry. I definitely have some great takeaways to view the whole ordeal differently, and I know that was his goal. I just wish the author didn’t make it so obvious that he was picking and choosing sources, interpreting liberally, and speaking out of both sides of his mouth when blaming Cortez in one moment but then retracting any credit in the next. Was Cortez in charge or not? You can’t have both….
Not that enjoyable of a read. Would have loved it to be about half the length.
Terrible take
As a historian, your job is to relay information, possibly with snippets of your own “beg to differ” or your input by including more thought or even modern psychology to understand a broader view of what went on back then. The human experience is quite universal, and to assume a complete malicious intent of the Spanish, while portraying them as dumb, not in power, OR inversely, completely in power, is to completely illogically narrate the story simply based on opinion. This book never ceases to give some folly to push the narrative that, “white man bad” while simultaneously up playing their power, and down playing their awesome actions. Inversely, the narrator down plays the negative from the Aztec civilization while up playing the good of their civilization as well. I much prefer the historical account given by Buddy Levy who gave all sides of the story rather unbiased. In there we see the faults of both sides, and we see the amazing tale of the conquest of the Aztec in two years. The Aztec weren’t the only civilization btw, and just because they had an empire and the largest city in the world at the time, doesn’t mean that they’re the only people that matter, and who we “should feel pity for” . They ate people, they skinned them, and ripped their hearts out based on religion. This conquest alone is most notable because of the military expertise and decisions that went into this endeavor, aside from just the siege of Mexico City that ended the Aztec empire. Please learn more about history aside from this one book. It doesn’t serve justice to the historical accounts one bit.